Image - Socrates
Past Event

Roosevelt Montás: Rescuing Socrates

Join us for a virtual conversation with Roosevelt Montás to discuss how a classical, liberal education is still spreading, both in-person and over the internet, to people of all backgrounds throughout the world, and how, even though currently out of favor academically in America, it is still transforming millions of lives. Montás weaves together memoir, literary reflection and the impact that reading Plato, Augustine, Freud and Gandhi has had on his life.

Rescuing Socrates describes Montás's emigration from the Dominican Republic to Queens, New York, when he was 12, and his discovery of the classics as an undergraduate at Columbia University. After graduating, he stayed at Columbia, earning a Ph.D. in English and Comparative Literature, serving as director of Columbia’s Center for the Core Curriculum, and starting a Great Books program for low-income high school students who aspire to be the first in their families to attend college.

MLF Organizer
George Hammond
Notes

MLF: Humanities

This program is part of The Commonwealth Club's Good Lit series, underwritten by the Bernard Osher Foundation

Bernard Osher Foundation

November 16, 2021

United States

Speakers
Image - Roosevelt Montás

Roosevelt Montás

Senior Lecturer, Center for American Studies, and Director, Freedom and Citizenship Program, Columbia University; Author, Rescuing Socrates

Image - George Hammond

In Conversation with George Hammond

Author, Conversations With Socrates